I HAVE a soft spot for toads—with the exception of the gigantic cane variety that plagues northern Australia—indeed, amphibians of all kinds, so do not understand how they could have been so mistreated as to acquire the entirely imaginary stone believed to be encased in their heads. As the toad does have poison glands in its skin, it was supposed that it would carry an antidote and, from the 14th to at least the 18th centuries, people maintained that the touch of such a ‘toadstone’ was sovereign against poisoning and similar disorders.
In his 1608, Edward Topsell tells us: ‘There be many that